A Tragic Past
by Curse This
Summary: Set after Harry's fifth year during the holidays. In other words, it's my interpretation of chapter one of book 6. I tried to stay true to the style of Rowling in setting everything up. Harry gets a shock when the recent events of the Ministry resurface.
1. Forever Gone

Forever Gone

Privet Drive was not unlike most streets in the town of Little Whinging. Near identical houses were lined up adjacent to neatly cut lawns, with close attention paid to weeds and rogue blades of grass, which threatened to invade the concrete driveways. Anything out of the ordinary was frowned upon, or anyone. Many on the Drive considered one's house to be a reflection of their person, and Vernon Dursley was no exception. The big, thickset man was standing on the front step of 4 Privet Drive, his face rigid as he surveyed his street. Vernon jerked his thick neck skyward at the splash of water on his badly parted hair. His great ham of a face screwed up and his bushy moustache was drawn nearly up to his nose when he saw that the weather once again ruined the chance of a normal day.

The usually bright sky of Little Whinging was blanketed with cloud. Vernon heard the sound of thunderclap in the distance. Furious, he swore all the way down the drive, flung his briefcase in his company car and sped off to work. Soon after, the sky made a tumultuous rumbling sound like it was swallowing the sun, something the diminishing light seemed to support. The single drop multiplied into many in the wake of the speeding car, and it started to pour with rain. The near deafening patter easily tore through the newspapers held over the heads of businessmen and women running to their cars for work. The early morning was nearly as dark as night in no time at all. This scene was an all to familiar one to Vernon Dursley since the start of the holidays.

Petunia's face was suggestive of a person who had just tasted something foul as she peered out the kitchen window at the hammering rain. She manoeuvred her long bony neck to peer behind her up the stairs at the shut door of the smallest bedroom in the house. Her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of lighting and simultaneous thunderclap that shook the foundation of the house. She turned her horse like face to the attention of her 16-year-old son, Dudley, who had jumped suddenly at the loud thunderous noise and was currently sitting frightened under the kitchen table.

Petunia jumped up with a look of frightful concern on her face and crouched down with him under the table.

"Did the loud noise scare my little Duddikins," Petunia said soothingly as she comforted her son. "Mummy's here now."

There was nothing at all little about Dudley Dursley, except perhaps his brain. Dudley was simply enormous, something which countless diets and exercise programs failed to fix, partly because Petunia kept offering him cakes as a reward. Dudley was as stupid as he was big and twice as mean, though no boy or girl on Privet Drive was fool enough to point it out. No one went against what Dudley said, not if they liked where their teeth were. But Petunia and Vernon could see none of his faults, just a perfectly normal child.

Dudley looked upstairs with tears of frustration and anger in his large pale face. "It's him...He has something to with it," Dudley choked to his doting mother.

Petunia brushed the blond hair out of Dudley's fat face and wiped the streaming tears from his eyes with her hand. His face was now buried on her shoulder. She slowly turned her head to the top of the stairs, her expression impossible to read.


	2. Stormy Weather

  
  
Stormy Weather

Inside the smallest bedroom of 4 Privet Drive, a rather skinny boy lay inert on his bed, listening to the storm that brewed outside. The windows shook with the intensity of the pounding rain but he stared straight at the dull ceiling, with only his open eyes and a heaving chest to show that he was alive. He had spent most of the summer like this, moving only occasionally to look outside. His bedside lamp struggled to provide light to the room but it was enough to cast a pale light on his face. Harry Potter, like his cousin Dudley was 16, but they could not be more different. Harry was now quite tall, with a pale face and jet-black hair that constantly stuck up at the back. His bright green eyes were hidden behind a pair of thin-rimmed, round glasses in a stark contrast to Dudley's piggish brown ones. Also unlike his cousin, Harry Potter was a wizard.

It was now one month to the day since he died. It took a long time for Harry to admit to himself that Sirius was actually gone, but the truth had finally settled in. Like his mother and father, Sirius Black was no more. Killed by one under the service of the most powerful and evil wizard the world had ever seen. The same one responsible for the death of his parents when he was only a baby. Harry rolled on his side and shut his eyes tightly, as the storm outside raged on. The events of one month ago were clear in his memory. The arrested look on Sirius' face as he fell through the veil, the cruel sing-song voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, and the laugh; a high-pitched laugh so cruel and cold that it would constantly ring in Harry's mind and make his scar burn white hot. Harry suddenly clutched his hands to his forehead and opened his mouth in a silent scream. A pale snake-like face and furious red eyes stared at him out of the recesses of this mind. Harry snapped his eyes back open. The room shook with a deafening boom and was momentarily illuminated as the lighting struck a house down the street. His eyes were wet with the extreme agony of remembering his past. Harry feared to close his eyes again, lest he see once more in his head the wizard whose name no one dared to speak, the man who Harry alone could kill, or no one else would. Voldemort.

All because of a prophecy made before he was born, before he was famous for being the one person that Voldemort wasn't able to murder. Harry once again turned his attention towards the window, which was struggling to repel the endless rain. On Harry's mouldy desk lay countless scrolls of paper, all sent from his friends Ron and Hermione in an attempt to condole him.

_Ron and I are worried about you Harry; you've not returned our letters. I can't even imagine what you're feeling right now but you have to talk to us. Owl me soon, okay?_

Harry knew deep down that he would eventually move on from the death of his godfather, but he couldn't see how that would be possible at the moment. The grief was still to close. Even the Dursley's were giving him a wider berth than usual, although Harry knew better than to think that this was out of concern for him.

Another flash lit up the room. Harry froze all of a sudden. He sprang upright on his bed and directed his vision towards the window. Harry gasped at how dark it had become. Surely, thought Harry, it must be night. But Harry's cheap digital watch displayed 9:30 AM. The lighting could not have struck more than a hundred metres or two away. It took another moment for Harry to realise what was wrong. He heard no thunder. He stared through his window where the lighting tore a path through the sky. The window was shaking with the rain now, but he heard nothing but his own breath. There was no light coming from under the bedroom door. Wasn't the stairwell light on before? Harry didn't recall hearing the sound of footsteps on the creaky steps. Harry instinctively snatched his wand from beside his table just as his failing lamp flickered off. He was now blanketed in cold darkness, and some deep instinct within Harry told him not to illuminate his wand just yet. He felt a surge that tingled through his body that he couldn't explain; yet it was strangely familiar.

It was at this moment that another bolt of lighting struck with a resounding boom and at the same time cast a brief light upon his room. His heart jumped to his throat as Harry drew in a petrified breath at what he had seen. A face, visible only for an instant, appeared by the window. Harry sprang up immediately and pointed a shaking wand arm towards where he saw it last, while he tried to take in that which he saw. He recognised the face he saw at once, but this was not so disturbing as the thought that occurred to him immediately afterwards. The face belonged to someone who he knew to be dead.


	3. The Godfather

The Godfather

Harry was leapt from bed with a fright and started slowly towards the window when his lamp flickered back on. The storm that had continued uninterrupted outside, was still unrelenting and unyielding against the glass pane, though it was obviously dying down. There was no face near the window; even the weak light from the lamp could reveal that. No one could have been there and left soon. He sighed and sat slowly back onto his bed facing the window. A thousand thoughts ran through his head and Harry felt himself becoming quite nauseous. But what of the tingling feeling, and the eerie silence that the storm had brought? The rain outside had slowed to a patter and the sound of the individual drops hitting the metal gutter could be distinguished. Even the sun was visible through the clouds. Harry switched off his failing lamp and stared still at the window, willing himself to believe what he had seen.

He squinted as the now apparent sun reflected off the window glass into his eyes. He strained his ears and he heard the sound of Aunt Petunia and Dudley talking loudly in the kitchen. It sounded like Petunia was making him a big breakfast, Harry judged by the amount of pot banging going on. Had they not noticed anything unusual during the storm? Harry threw his wand back on the table in frustration and put his head in his hands. Did he really want to see his godfather that much that he would have some sort of hallucination? It just didn't feel right to him. Harry stood up with resignation and walked morosely towards the door. Perhaps he would surprise Petunia and Dudley by joining them downstairs. He just didn't feel like being by himself after that, even if he had to endure the company of his remaining relatives. Even before he reached the door handle though, he knew something was different.

Harry whirled around and surveyed his room with a feeling that he'd forgotten something, missed something important. He walked right up to the window and slid it up until he could feel fresh air against his face, such air that only occurs after rain. He could hear the sound of water from the gutter dripping slowly and loudly down the drainpipe. He rushed back to his bed, grabbed his wand and turned back towards the window. With a rush of excitement, Harry saw that he had been right. Something was different. The sun was still reflecting off something at the window, but it was not the glass pane, it couldn't be, he had opened it up. it was something near his desk. Harry's face spread into a look of astonishment and then understanding as he let his wand drop to the hardwood floor. He didn't need to look, he knew straight away what it was that he had long since forgotten. But the truth was more bewildering than any of the events during the storm.


End file.
